Reaching Generation Z: Matching company values with CSR

5 November 2021

A question countless organisations ask themselves is “how do we reach the new generation?” – a challenge that, for many, can feel like stumbling in the dark. According to James Reason, CEO at SCC member Target Aid, the answers are transparency, communication and gamification. “Generation Z holds a very high demand for transparency, is fast in decision-making and needs to be able to relate to your values – therefore it is crucial to communicate with them in an engaging way.”

The Swedish fundraising platform Target Aid enables individuals, organisations and companies to donate to charity projects, as opposed to donating to a whole charity organisation – making it more transparent as to which specific project the money will go to. Alongside providing the platform, Target Aid also helps companies with their CSR-work: “The service opens the opportunity for small to medium sized companies operating in different fields to do targeted CSR-work by engaging in specific charity projects, fitting their focus areas and values,” says James Reason, CEO at Target Aid.

Generation Z and the importance of CSR
During the past couple of years, Gen Z has proven to be very impactful when it comes to the reputation of a brand. With the generation having an increased interest and a strong will to engage in societal issues, it is important that businesses do so as well to connect with the target group. “As Gen Z is very fast in decision-making, and also possesses a great power to completely ruin, or praise, your brand through social media platforms, it is important to recognise their driving forces to stay on their good side. Therefore, knowing your values, adapting your CSR-work accordingly and making sure you communicate them in a transparent way is crucial, regardless if you view them as a target group in consumer branding or employer branding,” says James.

For the new generation of employees, different aspects are considered when choosing a company to work for, as opposed to previous generations. For example, Gen Z wants to make sure they can personally stand by the company values before considering working for them. “It is so important to choose what to support as a company if you want to be true to your values, because again, Gen Z will not go for it otherwise, they will look for other companies.”

Gamification = engagement
Target Aid provides data, CSR-service, and specific tools for companies to visualise and communicate social responsibility in a gamified way. “It is a win-win situation both for companies and charities, where companies benefit from the good publicity it gives with greater return of engagement, and charities receive more donations,” says James and continues: “When it comes to gamification, we have seen that making the donation process more interactive equals more engagement – which is the end-goal for both companies and charities.”

Target Aid keeps track of the amount of donations done, as well as total amount in value. When a project is half way through to its target, all donors receive an email – making it easy to follow the progression. “With the possibility to share your engagement in a charity project on social media directly from our platform, we can not only keep track of how many shares a project gets, but also how many donations and how much money has been raised due to your specific share on your social media channels – in that way, it becomes really transparent how much impact your specific engagement has made in the progress to reach a charity goal,” says James.

Entering the UK market
Looking into the future, there is a lot going for Target Aid. “We are in a scale up phase right now. Amongst other things, we just recently landed a deal with the Norwegian Sports Association, giving us about 13,000 sports clubs as clients in Norway. Other great news is our collaboration with MasterCard,” says James and continues: “Our biggest news is that we are establishing in the UK in October 2021, and will launch an entirely new website for our UK business. We are really looking forward to entering the UK market.”